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Essential question
What does it mean to be a refugee?
More than 100 students, ages five to 20, who have been granted asylum or refugee status in the U.S. gathered in Manhattan for six weeks.
The International Rescue Committee, a nongovernment organization, started the Refugee Youth Summer Academy, or RYSA, 17 years ago to prepare children new to the U.S. for public school.
The students, who came from 29 different countries, experience a typical American school day, taking classes in subjects like English and math as well as dance and art.
Eighteen-year-old Binta Diallo from Guinea said she and her siblings had difficulty even setting foot outside their apartment when they first arrived in the U.S.
“Everybody feel very sad. Like, knowing they left everybody in their country and then came here,” Diallo said.
She worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep up with other students when she began attending school that fall.
“But when I get here, I see white, black, a lot of people ... Here, we were like a family, everybody cares for each other,” said Diallo, who returned to RYSA as a peer counselor this summer.
RYSA director Kira O’Brien says figuring out a foreign school system is just one of many challenges refugee children face and that the program helps students feel more comfortable in their new environment. Some are fleeing civil war, gang violence and natural disasters in their home countries.
“It’s when you build a community of students who are like, ‘Hey, I’ve done that, too.’ Or, ‘I felt that way at lunch time before,’ that you are really building strength within students,” O’Brien said.
Key terms
asylum
— the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee
refugee
— a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster
hijab
— a head covering worn in public by some Muslim women
Warm up questions ( before watching the video)
- What is difficult about moving to a new place as a child?
- What kinds of obstacles might someone moving to a new country encounter?
- Is it important to make sure all students have equal access to education?
Critical thinking questions ( after watching the video)
- How does RYSA help students transition to life in the U.S.?
- How does learning and spending time with other refugee kids help the students at RYSA?
- Should programs like this exist for adults, as well as children? Why or why not?
